


Ache To Come Home

by KodaWickett



Category: The Smiths
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe- Canon Divergent, Johnny is 23, M/M, Morrissey is 35
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 22:40:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18353168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KodaWickett/pseuds/KodaWickett
Summary: Johnny Marr is restless in his hometown of Manchester.  Morrissey is dying for something interesting to occur other than running the bed & breakfast located on a farm that has been in his family for generations.  When Johnny arrives in Athy, Ireland asking if there’s a vacancy, Morrissey might just get what he asked for.Or a terribly indulgent soulmate AU





	Ache To Come Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic for the Johnny/Morrissey ship.  
> I love this fic dearly and I hope you will too.  
> This is chapter one and chapter two will be uploaded soon!

 

 

**January 10th, 1983**

Johnny felt nothing. He kept his body perfectly still on the way to hospital. Dexterous fingers were not shaping guitar chords on his thigh this time. There were no melodies playing in the background of his brain, it was utter silence as he attempted to rehearse what he would say to the family members awaiting his arrival. Of course Johnny knew that this was the worst moment to inform them that he had chose not to attend university and instead planned to take a gap year but if he didn’t speak up now he knew he never would. To drown out the thrum of anxiety pumping through his veins he focused on the familiar blur of Manchester flying past him as Angie pressed the gas pedal a little further. His grandmother had passed away and he should have been devastated but instead all he could think of was how he wished it were him instead, at least then he would be out of this dreary town.

  There once was a time he would have shouted from the rooftops the love he felt for this city but that was before it choked the life from every soul he called home. Angie was the only one left living although he certainly didn’t feel the love for her he once did. To thank for that he had the nagging feeling his soulmate was a man and he enjoyed the thought. Soulmates were a topic Johnny didn’t discuss anymore. He knew that Angie wasn’t his but he didn’t know how to let her go. It was routine by now after being together since he was 15.

However in a week Johnny would be on a train and then catch a ferry to his ancestral home in Ireland.   His mate Stephen Pomfet suggested Johnny head for a bed and breakfast located on a farm in Athy owned by a fellow named Morrissey. Johnny leaned back on the passenger seat headrest and tried to fight the spark of hope kindling in his bones. He couldn’t deal with anymore disappointment.

 

**March 20th, 1983**

Morrissey ground his teeth together to keep from cursing. There was a sweet looking elderly woman checking in and he needed to focus his frayed attention span on her instead of recalling the way Linder talked about the young man she met on the ferry earlier that morning. When she’d mentioned him it was as if every nerve ending in his body was set aflame. Tingles caressed his spinal cord like a pianist would graze over piano keys.

   He knew what that meant, this new stranger about town was his _soulmate_. Morrissey had a soulmate once before and while legend stated that it were possible to meet another in your lifetime it was a rare occasion for the event to occur. Besides, the agreement he had with Jake was comfortable. Jake was easily read, certainly not his soulmate, and as a former business partner he knew the depths of Morrissey that most people didn’t get the chance to see. With this new man he would have to heaven forbid, _talk with him._

  He quickly finished assisting the customers in line and started them on a tour of the grounds. This stretch of land was the only reason he decided to give up a music career and take over the family business. Morrissey Farms Bed & Breakfast had been in operation for generations and since his sister had no interest the burden as always fell on his shoulders. By his mother’s ideology being unattached meant that it was God’s plan for her son to carry on in his father’s footsteps. For all the moments of complaint he didn’t find any fault with where divine providence or the lack thereof had landed him because the town of Athy was indeed a perfect match for his poetic nature.

    Johnny was meant to catch the train to the coast and then ride the ferry to Athy but once he arrived in that hospital room and saw the pained faces of what surviving family members he had left he knew that he couldn’t leave just yet. By January ‘s end Johnny was itching it get away. So he made a clean break with Angie, told his parents he’d already dropped out of uni, and decided to spend the last few months sightseeing. The routine of paying for an overnight stay in a hotel and gone to the next town by morning had worn him down pretty quickly by the end of February.  

   When March 1st rolled around he rode the train as far as it would take him and then took a Ferry to Ireland leaving England behind. By the second week of March although Johnny was enjoying the feel of Dublin he was longing for somewhere to plant his roots. That’s when he remembered about Stephen Pomfet suggesting he travel to Athy to stay at the infamous bed and breakfast. March 20th saw him on a ferry to Athy chatting with a very nice woman by the name of Linder.

   After a few minutes of general discussion about music Linder suprised Johnny by saying, “What brings you to Athy? You don’t look like the enjoying the countryside type.” Johnny laughed but was a bit annoyed with how she like everyone else, went about mistaking him for a lad before adjusting his sunglasses and replying. “My mate back in Manchester recommended I stay at the bed and breakfast. Was meant to be here earlier but I guess I got lost enjoying the countryside.”  The expression on Linder’s face was enough to fuel his good mood for the rest of the trip. Instead of going straight toward the bed and breakfast Johnny wanted to explore the town, get to know the locals and maybe dream of the future he could have with the bloke who was his soulmate. That thought brought his steps to a hault and he looked around for the closest person near him, he needed a drink and he needed one now.

 

**March 21st, 1983**

It was 12 am when Morrissey spotted a young man walking up the cobblestone driveway carrying a worn backpack over his shoulders and guitar case in his hands. The details of his person were hidden by the darkness outside but Morrissey didn’t need to see him to know that this young soujner was his soulmate, he felt it. Morrissey held his breath when the young man stepped in the door. He was quite a sight. Slightly long hair artfully dishelved atop his head, accompanied by a black jumper the sleeves rolled to his elbows, drainpipe trousers that clung to his legs like a dream, and worn brown boots that seemed to have walked a thousand miles or more.

  It wasn’t until he heard a cough that he’d realized he had been drinking in the figure of this man as if he had intentions to eat him. Suddenly he understood what Linder had meant when she once said to him, “Devout vegan, you may be but one day you will meet a man that will make you go flexitarian in a minute. You’ll be struck with such a gnawing desire to get your mouth around that man’s meat it will do your head in.” Shaking the inappropriate thought aside he put on his winning customer service smile and said, “Hello and welcome to Morrissey Bed & Breakfast, my name is Morrissey. How may I help you?”

   Johnny was struck speechless. He’d write Stephen Pomfet a scathing letter as soon as he could move. Not one time did Pomfet care to mention how bloody good looking Morrissey was. Then again he reckoned Stephen wouldn’t notice, Johnny was after all the only bisexual man in their friend group that was below the age of 40.

“ _Walk towards the counter you idiot.”,_ Johnny thought to himself. Surprisingly his feet did just that allowing his mouth to utter eloquently,”I… uh…need a room. If you have a vacancy that is.” Morrissey nodded his head noting the aesthetically pleasing way the young man’s cheeks were tinted pink.

 Morrissey mentally berated himself as he opened the booklet to see if there were any vacancies.  “ _You can’t stare at him all night! You have a job to do. What would mother think? Getting all misty eyed over a man young enough to be mistaken for your son.”_   Eventually he found a vacant room then asked the man for his name, form of identification, and how he would be paying. When the man who he’d recently found out was named Johnny Marr, age 23, hailing from Manchester, handed him the payment for a weeks stay their fingers brushed.

  In union the pair gasped at the contact. Both aware of the electric current running through their bodies. Johnny looked like he was about to say something impulsive or lean in to kiss him and Morrissey panicked. “Unfortunately Johnny it’s too late to give you a tour of the grounds. The least I can do is escort you to your room, if that’s alright. Johnny smirked, ”Although I haven’t got any in ages, I usually require that the gentleman buy me dinner first. Might make an exception for you though.” As they walked the short distance from the lobby to Johnny’s room the word gentleman rang in Morrissey’s ears.


End file.
